Sunday, March 02, 2003

The New York Times reports
on the present destitution of Argentina. A few years ago, the country
had the highest per capita income in Latin America. Now, doctors are
treating children with kwashiorkor, a nutritional deficiency syndrome.
Other kids have it worse --- they're literally starving to death.

Turn over another leaf, and you get another anecdote. Desperate
people literally tearing the country apart to sell it for
scrap:

With Argentina in the fifth year of a devastating
recession, anything that glitters is gold for thieves: bronze busts,
commemorative plaques, statues of the famous, door knockers.

... on a May morning that happened to be her 59th
birthday, Norma Albino stepped into her bank branch in San Isidro, a
Buenos Aires suburb of cobblestone streets, famous for its affluence
and the tall spires of its 100-year-old church. She asked -- for the
third or fourth time since December -- for her family's money. When
the teller told her that he couldn't help her, she blurted out: "I'm
going to kill myself."

As horrified bank employees looked on, she poured a bottle of
rubbing alcohol over her head and snapped at a cigarette lighter.

Albino became, at that instant, a symbol of the rage and hurt
smouldering inside millions of Argentines. Rushed to a hospital, she
survived with third-degree burns. Months later, she has found that the
best therapy is simply to forget.

That last
story gives an account of how it happened --- radical IMF-inspired
reform pushed hard, in fact to the point where the IMF itself, albeit
by its own account, was pushing the country to ease off. But as Emma
from Late Night Thoughts points
out, even during the '90s, when "reform" was supposedly working
well, there was smoke in the air and the glint off strangely placed
mirrors for those with eyes to see it:

In 1993, as part of its deal with the World Bank,
Argentina was forced to privatize its water and sewage utility. The
government granted the concession to Aguas Argentina, a consortium
founded by two French companies, Vivendi and Suez. The consortium
promised to reduce water rates and to improve and expand water and
sewage services. In order to make the move popular, the Argentinian
government drove the price of water up 54% before the contract was
signed, allowing the company to roll back the increases and appear as
saviors to the population.

If the IMF had the courage of their convictions, the whole exercise
would have been pointless; if private industry could do a better job,
there's no need to go out of your way to make the public utilities
look bad. What does it say about the institution that they signed
onto this fakery in the first place?

It's interesting how quickly a bunch of ideologues who are unwilling to let facts get in the way of a good theory can ruin a country...